Austerity. What austerity?

[SideysGhost]

So respect for democracy is now fascism?? What idiocy.

Let us be crystal clear. You edwin are a Fianna Fáiler, and no Fianna Failer for the rest of eternity has got any right to dare to use the words "respect for democracy" after your party oversaw Nice II, Lisbon II, the illegal denial of three by-elections, the attempted debasement of the very voting system itself with the e-voting attempted coup - because that is exactly what it was - and finally the abandonment of Irish sovereignty to the IMF/ECB.

How dare you. How dare you!

[DaveMc]

Austerity. What austerity?
While the rest of us are tightening our belts and getting prepared for even more austerity in the next two Budgets [at least] the Finance Bill, to be published later today, includes major tax breaks to lure top earners here.

Finance Bill will include tax breaks to lure top earners here - The Irish Times - Wed, Feb 08, 2012

Are these tax breaks justified to lure senior executives from multinationals to Ireland given the hardship already endured, and still likely, by cutbacks in Social Welfare payments and other services, and extra charges applied all over the place to the rest of us? Particularly, as the Irish Times article points out:

Jobs - at what price?

That’s an affront to decent hardworking Irish people, as is the other end of the divide; a customer of mine who is on the sick with ‘post natal depression’ since having a baby 13 years ago was giving out about the “robbing bas**rds in Aer Lingus” who jacked up the price of tickets at Easter time, thus costing her more to get to her apartment in Spain.

[Astral Peaks]

It was the so called financial wizards that caused most of the current recessionary woes.

If the Irish govt bring even one of these bastards here and then reward him with special tax concessions there will be riots in the streets that will make Greece look like a Sunday picnic.

Well, 20,000 rallied yesterday in Athens protesting at the new round of austerity measures.
The population of Greece is 10 million.

[beolight]

Cheese FM, cheese.

Yippee do I hear talk of more free cheese from our EU brethren.

[Norman Bates]

RTE News also has a piece on the Finance Bill, which mentions the tax concessions towards the end of the page. It also reports that there are 21 legislative changes to help the international financial services sector.

Finance Bill due to be published - RT News

Hopefully, if there are any further 'updates', RTE will use this page to list them.

[MrFunkyBoogaloo]

So respect for democracy is now fascism?? What idiocy.

In what way is putting limitations on said democracy respectful? The problem with people like you is that you somehow feel that "democracy" is limited to only once every five years (or whenever a GE is called).

Democracy is a 24/7, 365.25 days of the year job I'm afraid - nothing you, or any other FFer or FGer, can say will change that.

[Daniel Plainview]

Its not a question of desiring civil unrest.
The bulk of normal people dont want such matters in normal times.

These are not normal times and in the context of this thread should an Irish government after all that has happened be seen to favour with special low taxes the very foreign individuals who have precipitated the current austerity measures who would blame them for attempting to violently oust such a despotic and amoral government

The revolution is coming. Yawn.

Revolution Irish style = Not registering for the household charge until the last days of the March deadline.

[Roman Emperor]

In what way is putting limitations on said democracy respectful? The problem with people like you is that you somehow feel that "democracy" is limited to only once every five years (or whenever a GE is called).

Democracy is a 24/7, 365.25 days of the year job I'm afraid - nothing you, or any other FFer or FGer, can say will change that.

Perhaps you don't fully grasp the concept of a parliamentary democracy?

[Ulster-Lad]

For comparison of wages have a look at this.

Today, think-tank Open Europe, which highlighted the blog, has posted its response. It mentions the earnings of two top Greek politicians. Former Greek PM George Papandreou earned €122,114 in 2009, while New Democracy party leader Antonis Samaras earned €107,150, plus "miscellaneous revenues" of €110,695.

Debt crisis and Greek debt talks: live - Telegraph

In 2009, Cowan was earning in excess of €214,000 p.a It was cut to €200,000 p.a when Kenny took office.

The Taoiseach's annual salary is €200,000 since March 2011.[2] It was cut from €214,187 to €200,000 when Kenny took office.A proposed increase of €38,000 in 2007, was deferred when Brian Cowen became Taoiseach[6] and in October 2008, the government announced a 10% salary cut for all ministers, including the Taoiseach.[7] However this was a voluntary cut and the salaries remained nominally the same with ministers and Taoiseach essentially refusing 10% of their salary. This courted controversy in December 2009 when a salary cut of 20% was based on the higher figure before the refused amount was deducted.[8] The Taoiseach is also allowed an additional €118,981 in annual expenses.

Taoiseach - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[the_Observer]

Austerity. What austerity?
While the rest of us are tightening our belts and getting prepared for even more austerity in the next two Budgets [at least] the Finance Bill 2012, to be published later today, includes major tax breaks to lure top earners here.

Finance Bill will include tax breaks to lure top earners here - The Irish Times - Wed, Feb 08, 2012

Are these tax breaks justified to lure senior executives from multinationals to Ireland given the hardship already endured, and still likely, by cutbacks in Social Welfare payments and other services, and extra charges applied all over the place to the rest of us? Particularly, as the Irish Times article points out:

Jobs - at what price?

We obviously don’t have the home grown talent in Ireland so we need to compete to attract talented people to Ireland. Unless we would prefer the jobs go to a son of a GF connected gombeen business man ?

Yes, it’s unfair but that’s capitalism.